EqualLogic Adds Auto-Replication Capabilities to PeerStorage Array

Nashua, N.H., April 19, 2004 – EqualLogic®, Inc. today announced new data protection capabilities for its all-inclusive IP SAN solutions, making affordable disaster recovery available to the rapidly growing mid-range SAN market. The PeerStorage™ Array 100E has expanded its extensive standard set of features to include auto-replication capabilities, providing businesses with automatic back-up and disaster protection of critical information. The EqualLogic PeerStorage array is a modular, self-managing, IP-based storage array that is affordable and easy to use, regardless of scale.

Industry analysts agree that providing replication as a standard feature within the SAN architecture will benefit a broad base of users. “Disk-to-disk data replication is becoming the key storage technology for reducing the backup window and for enabling rapid restore of mission critical applications," said Robert Gray, research vice president at IDC. "Solutions like EqualLogic's are making this data protection technology more accessible by including and managing auto-replication within the basic storage configuration.”

EqualLogic customer Cypress Software considered purchasing add-on software but placed the purchase on hold when they learned EqualLogic was adding disaster protection capabilities to its PeerStorage Array 100E. CTO Paul Vagnozzi at Cypress said, “As a good business partner, having a proven storage and disaster protection strategy in place is essential to giving our large corporate customers the peace of mind they require. The EqualLogic PeerStorage array has exceeded our expectations by delivering a robust, easy-to-manage SAN at an affordable price point. The new replication feature extends PeerStorage array’s snapshot capabilities to include disaster protection and create an all-in-one storage solution that eliminates the need for add-on storage software purchases and costly integration.”

Data replication on the PeerStorage array requires no additional license, no server software, and leverages the existing network infrastructure to reduce the time to protect services and eliminate the costs associated with traditional high availability and disaster protection software and hardware. As part of EqualLogic’s strategy to simplify storage, the PeerStorage array offers a single management structure for all of its integrated features across multiple arrays regardless of physical location.

“Our PeerStorage solution is designed to provide high functionality without complexity and makes it easy to extend SAN technology beyond the data center,” said John Joseph, vice president of marketing at EqualLogic. “Solutions that simplify storage while providing features such as data replication that impact and protect business operations are critical to IT operations. The PeerStorage array is an entire solution that meets the needs of the IT organization with an unmatched feature set that requires no additional investment by our customers.”

With the PeerStorage array with auto-replication, user-defined snapshots (instant, point-in-time copies) can be created and stored cross-building, cross-campus or across the country for the rapid and reliable backup and protection of data. Point-in-time copies are automatically transported to the designated location, yet managed and monitored through a single interface that preserves the PeerStorage architecture’s single-unit behavior. Data is preserved on disk in a usable format for rapid recovery in the event of disaster. Support for RAID 5 offers cost-effective storage space utilization, and support for different storage configurations at different sites enables continuous optimization for an enterprise’s evolving IT needs.

EqualLogic is the only IP SAN solution provider to offer a comprehensive and fully integrated standard feature set at no additional cost to the customer. Each PeerStorage Array 100E supports up to 14, 250-gigabyte disk drives (3.5 terabytes of storage capacity) fully redundant, fault-tolerant hardware, and integrated, full-featured automatic storage-management software. Up to 32 arrays can be combined to form a scalable enterprise storage grid of more than 100 terabytes. Pricing for EqualLogic's self-managing, self-scaling storage solutions starts below one cent per megabyte. The PeerStorage array is available immediately from EqualLogic PeerStorage Partners and select OEMs.

About EqualLogic

PeerStorage™ solutions from EqualLogic®, Inc. deliver the benefits of consolidated storage in a modular, self-managing, IP-based storage area network that is affordable and easy to use, regardless of scale. By eliminating complex tasks and enabling fast and flexible storage provisioning, PeerStorage solutions dramatically reduce acquisition and ongoing operational costs and make enterprise class shared block storage practical for the mid-range storage market. EqualLogic is based in Nashua, NH. For more information visit http://www.equallogic.com/ or http://www.peerstorage.com/

EqualLogic and PeerStorage are trademarks or registered trademarks of EqualLogic, Inc. Other marks belong to their respective owners.